Holiday Kamp
‘FOR anyone who has stayed full-board at one of the Spanish costas less salubrious holiday spots, the idea of spending time in an old Yugoslavian gulag might sound like a dream holiday.
But plans to turn the communist prison camp, situated on delightful Goli Otok island off the sun-kissed Croatian coast, have not met with everyones approval.
‘It is unacceptable that a tragic place of execution like Goli Otok, where Tito’s Yugoslav communist regime killed over 30,000 political prisoners, will be used in future as a tourist destination,’ the Centre for Investigation of Communist Crimes said in a statement.
The aim of the ‘hard-labour holidays’ would be for tourists to survive long enough to receive a certificate at the end of the holiday proving they had done their time.
Former detainees of Goli Otok have welcomed the idea, some even offering their services as guides.
But the Centre for Investigation of Communist Crimes likened the idea to using a Nazi concentration camp as a tourist theme park.
‘We urge the Croatian authorities to reject the study which suggests making profit from the killing and torture of innocent people,’ it said, suggesting that the island should instead be turned into a memorial centre as a warning to future generations of the evils of totalitarianism.
And then visited by, er, tourists ’
Posted: 25th, November 2004 | In: Strange But True Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
